The invention relates to a method and a mounting structure suitable for this for mounting a decorative plate at the correct height on a door of a household appliance.
When household appliances are built into kitchen units or are set up adjacent to these, the configuration of the visible front of the appliance is frequently matched to the décor of the doors of the adjacent kitchen units. To achieve a precisely flush arrangement of the unit doors and the visible parts of the appliance front, the latter are generally made up of a number of parts, specifically a door, which has to be mounted in a defined position in relation to a carcass of the appliance in order to close off an interior of the household appliance, and a decorative plate, which is mounted on the door with the aid of a mounting structure at a later stage when the household appliance is set up in its intended location of deployment and adjusted in relation to adjacent unit fronts.
A mounting structure is known from DE 10 2005 021 607 A1 and shown in FIG. 1. It comprises a plurality of stirrups 14 screwed to the rear face of a decorative plate 7 and mounting elbows 16, which are inserted into passages formed between the stirrups 14 and the decorative plate 7 and screwed to a lateral flank of the door. Vertical play of the mounting elbows 16 in the passages 15 predetermines the freedom of movement for vertical adjustment of the decorative plate 7. Inaccuracies when attaching the stirrups 14 reduce this play undesirably. Adjustment takes place with the aid of positioning screws 12 on an upper flank 3 of the door 2. To ensure a secure hold, these positioning screws 12 are initially screwed in deeper than is ultimately required when the decorative plate has been finally adjusted. The fine adjustment of the screws 11 is time-consuming, since each non-identical alignment of the two screws 11 means that the decorative plate hangs skew and the correct vertical position can only be assessed when the decorative plate 7 is horizontally aligned in the correct manner.
When the decorative plate is mounted with this known mounting structure, the stirrups 14 are first screwed to the decorative plate 7. To ensure that the refrigerator door 2 is not damaged by one of the mounting elbows 16 as the decorative plate 7 is hung, the decorative plate 7 must first be suspended from the door 2 and the mounting elbows 16 are then inserted from the side. As the passages 15 are concealed in a gap between the decorative plate 7 and the door 2 and are not easy to access, it is difficult to insert the mounting elbows 16 into the passages 15 and as the mounting elbows 16 have to be clamped in the passages 15, to prevent the decorative plate 7 rattling, considerable force is required to drive them as deeply as required into the passages 15. Tools, such as a hammer for example, cannot be used due to the risk of damaging the decorative plate 7 or bending the mounting elbows 16.